Russia Today is reporting that photos of the Moon taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter clearly show Lunokhod-2 the rover that landed on the celestial body in 1973 as part of the Soviet space programme. Good to know the Soviet space programme wasn’t a hoax either then
Meanwhile the Russian Federal Space Agency (aka Roscosmos) is reporting on its website confirmation from prime minister Vladimir Putin of the Russian-Indian joint mission, that we reported back in July 2008, although it seems the mission will not now go to the International Space Station
Roscosmos is also reporting that the ISS partners are ready to co-operate with third parties and Cina is cited. India is also an obvious space faring nation that could be involved which makes the non-ISS Soyuz flight a bit of a mystery
In the run up to the launch of Soyuz TMA-18 Roscosmos talks about the 12 emergency landing sites outside Russia and Kazakhstan that there are, who knew there were so many? and for media there si an opportuntiy to drink tea at a tea party with cosmonauts and astronauts about to go to the ISS
While this report about Roscosmos Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency discussions about what must be the Bepi Colombo Mercury mission is somewhat hard to read but seems to suggest the Russians might get onboard this project, which has had some budgetary trouble in the past due to technical troubles
The Samaar Space Center Soyuz 2-1b rocket is about to get some new technology care of Khrunichev Space Center subsidiary Voronezh Mechanical Factory which Roscosmos says is to invent a new steering engine, the RD-0110R, the 2-1b flight control system
Finally Roscosmos had a board meeting recently
